Saturday, July 21, 2007

Elderly couple's lives in limbo over unpaid $1.63 tax bill

In 1996, the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office mailed a paltry $1.63 property tax bill for the Slidell-area home of Kermit and Dolores Atwood that never reached its destination. The seemingly innocuous, misaddressed bill was the start of a bizarre legal ordeal that threatens to leave the elderly couple homeless and now stands at the door of the state Supreme Court. The chain of events that followed the wayward property tax bill, including the eventual sale of the home at a sheriff's tax sale, is described by Dolores Atwood as "seven years of emotional hell." "I don't know how much more I can endure," said Atwood, 69, while sitting in a FEMA trailer in front of her Katrina-ravaged brick home on Dauphine Street, just north of Slidell. "I wake up in the middle of the night, and it's on my mind," she said. "All this should have never happened." But it did, all because of the $1.63 tax bill that Atwood and her husband, Kermit, never received. And they still face the threat of losing their property because of the bill, which was mailed to a defunct address in late 1996 and returned undelivered to the Sheriff's Office. The Atwoods' nightmare began when they learned in 2000 that their four-bedroom, two-bath home had been sold in 1997 through a tax sale for the $1.63 in unpaid taxes, plus 10 cents interest and $125 in costs associated with the sale....

1 comment:

Dolores Atwood said...

This is an outrage as many people across the nation have verified. This is not louisiana politics as usual but an eye opener for people and i will continue to monitor all the public records and if you are breaking the law like having 4, 3, or 2 homestead exemptions, you will be turned in along with many other things I have found that people are doing so openly with no conscience. New legislation to protect people will be a prime focus for me. You have to live this nightmare to really understand how it feels and how it destroys you all for $1.63. Thanks for running the story. It has recieved such wonderful national attention. Thanks, Dolores Atwood Slidell, La